The task of the comedian is to try to find the balance in a world that seems to be entirely out of it.
Canadian comedian Ron James admits that his can be a difficult job at times, but a satisfying one.
James is promoting his current tour, Pedal to the Metal, during which he will be hitting communities across the province, including Maple Ridge.
Canadians are difficult to read sometimes, he said.
Apparently Canadians are explosive over the Donald Trump issues. But when he talked about First Nations issues at a recent show in Chilliwack, the audience went quiet.
“What’s that about,” asked the comedian, answering the question himself.
“Canadians resent their myths being debunked. We’ve never really been a country of confrontation. We really don’t have a rebel soul,” he said, adding that as a comic, it’s his job to tip the apple cart, not ride in it.
“If I’m saying what I’m thinking are justified observations on the egregious affront to native peoples in reserves and their water systems, that you’ld be safer drinking out of a pissed-in puddle in a Somalian refugee camp than you would two thirds of the water coming out of the taps in the boreal gulags across Canada’s tree line, they’re going to go quiet.”
And if brown water was coming from the taps in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s tony neighbourhood?
“It would be fixed faster than a horny horse in a Mountie’s Musical Ride.
James aims these comedic barbs at all politicians, not just the federal Liberals.
“We’re not supposed to be card carrying members to the country club,” he said.
“[Prime Minister Justin Trudeau] deserves to be called to task. Just because he’s handsome doesn’t mean he’s getting it right.
James said he’s been funny his whole life, or at least as far as he can remember.
“But it’s an exponential leap being funny in the kitchen and classroom to being funny on stage.”
He has been in comedy for 38 years, getting his first start at Second City in Toronto in the 1980s alongside Mike Myers, who was a junior member of the group at the time.
James first tried standup in 1987 after leaving Second City.
In the 1990s, James moved to Los Angeles, where he got spots on television shows and the occasional movie.
When he returned to Canada in 1993, he wrote a one-man show called Up and Down a Shaky Town: One Man’s Journey Through the California Dream.
It was this show that changed his life.
It got amazing reviews and he took the best bits from the show and built them into a standup act.
He has been on the road traveling across the country since.
He is also just about to write his ninth special for CBC television.
And he is jazzed about coming to Maple Ridge for the first time.
“I just saw a big article on the news yesterday on CBC about the homeless in Maple Ridge and the drug paraphernalia. Oh, boy, I don’t know if there are any laughs in that but I’ll try,” said James.
The Nova Scotian says he has some customized material on British Columbia, as well as that on what’s going on in the rest of Canada and across the border.
“My stuff has always been Canadiana-based. But I think what separates me from the pack is that I like the way words trip off the tongue and tickle the ears, as well as the funny bone.”
He has a simple mandate: “If the ushers aren’t wiping the seats down after I’m finished, I haven’t done my job.”
• Ron James’s Pedal to the Metal show takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 9 at the ACT, 11944 Haney Place in Maple Ridge.
• For tickets, call 604-476-2787 or go to theactmapleridge.org.